Anybody use Linux? For old hardware, which distro?
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From: RayLopez99 on 2 Jun 2010 08:36 Thinking of using on an old 1998 laptop PC that presently has a Pentium II, with a built in generic Dell modem, USB mouse, 512k RAM (!), DVD/CD, running Windows XP fine now (very slow), some distro of Linux. In another thread I got into a debate about what's the best distro for a simple new Acer machine ($300) that uses the Atom uP from Intel. But in this thread I just want to know if *any* Linux distro will work on such *old* hardware. The target user's needs are VERY minimal. Very very very. Here is what she needs: dial-up modem for internet access. Mouse. Maybe a printer (maybe not). Support at *any* resolution for the Dell graphics card (forget the name--it's pretty generic though). No need for an email client-- she keeps all her emails at Yahoo, all her docs at Google apps, etc. Everything online. No need for sound. The machine has USB but this girl does not even know what a memory stick is. So only the USB mouse matters. Anybody think I can use Linux on this old setup, and, if which one? Not even a 'best' OS --just one that will last five years or so and allow surfing the net and maybe printing a document on a printer locally? RL
From: David Brown on 2 Jun 2010 09:32 On 02/06/2010 14:36, RayLopez99 wrote: > Thinking of using on an old 1998 laptop PC that presently has a > Pentium II, with a built in generic Dell modem, USB mouse, 512k RAM > (!), DVD/CD, running Windows XP fine now (very slow), some distro of > Linux. > I take it you mean 512 MB ram? Otherwise the machine could barely run DOS... > In another thread I got into a debate about what's the best distro for > a simple new Acer machine ($300) that uses the Atom uP from Intel. > But in this thread I just want to know if *any* Linux distro will work > on such *old* hardware. > > The target user's needs are VERY minimal. Very very very. Here is > what she needs: > > dial-up modem for internet access. Mouse. Maybe a printer (maybe > not). Support at *any* resolution for the Dell graphics card (forget > the name--it's pretty generic though). No need for an email client-- > she keeps all her emails at Yahoo, all her docs at Google apps, etc. > Everything online. No need for sound. The machine has USB but this > girl does not even know what a memory stick is. So only the USB mouse > matters. > > Anybody think I can use Linux on this old setup, and, if which one? > Not even a 'best' OS --just one that will last five years or so and > allow surfing the net and maybe printing a document on a printer > locally? > Have you looked at www.distrowatch.org? They have lists of distros in various categories, including those for small systems. Personally, I'd install a minimal Debian system, add a lightweight desktop (lxde seems popular) and just the applications I need. But for a more ready-to-run system you could try lubuntu (Ubuntu with lxde). It was not long ago that I installed Debian on a Pentium 90 MHz with 64 MB ram. It was a server, so no X or gui, but it runs fine on that hardware.
From: The Natural Philosopher on 2 Jun 2010 10:02 RayLopez99 wrote: > Thinking of using on an old 1998 laptop PC that presently has a > Pentium II, with a built in generic Dell modem, USB mouse, 512k RAM > (!), DVD/CD, running Windows XP fine now (very slow), some distro of > Linux. > Do you mean 512kbyte or 512Mbtye? I honestly dont think I have run X on less that 4Mbytes successfully, and that wasn't Linux. I cant remember the ast time I saw a PeeCee with under 640K RAM. But it was an 80286, not a Pentium If its 512Mbyte, its totally adequate and just about any distro will suit the machine. > In another thread I got into a debate about what's the best distro for > a simple new Acer machine ($300) that uses the Atom uP from Intel. > But in this thread I just want to know if *any* Linux distro will work > on such *old* hardware. > > The target user's needs are VERY minimal. Very very very. Here is > what she needs: > > dial-up modem for internet access. Mouse. Maybe a printer (maybe > not). Support at *any* resolution for the Dell graphics card (forget > the name--it's pretty generic though). If its using an LCD screen you need the card to drive at the LCD resolution ONLY. > No need for an email client-- > she keeps all her emails at Yahoo, all her docs at Google apps, etc. > Everything online. No need for sound. The machine has USB but this > girl does not even know what a memory stick is. So only the USB mouse > matters. > > Anybody think I can use Linux on this old setup, and, if which one? > Not even a 'best' OS --just one that will last five years or so and > allow surfing the net and maybe printing a document on a printer > locally? > Mint/debian/ubuntu etc etc. In the end, they differ more in how bleeding edge and unstable they are. You don't need any of that. So pick something boring and stable, like 'Debian stable' End users won't notice much difference once set up, if any. Theres more difference user wise between KDE and Gnome desktops, than the distros underneath. I've not set up a dial-up modem on Linux to date. Well I sort of did, but it was a 3G dongle. That's the nastiest part. The rest is bog standard. You will need about 20Gigs of disk at most for all this. If at all possible set it up where you have a broadband connection initially, so it can update itself. There may be issues in that you may need to REMOVE a bunch of stuff that relies on te internet, like ntp etc. None of this is distro specific though. Juts pick one, and tune it till it works, hand it over, and forget about it for 5 years. A friend did juts that when his daughter left for Uni. Old 256M Ram laptop. It got SUSE linux on it. never faltered. When it died she wanted another one just like the old one.... > RL
From: B Sellers on 2 Jun 2010 13:46 On 06/02/2010 05:36 AM, RayLopez99 wrote: > Thinking of using on an old 1998 laptop PC that presently has a > Pentium II, with a built in generic Dell modem, USB mouse, 512k RAM > (!), DVD/CD, running Windows XP fine now (very slow), some distro of > Linux. > If you are correct in saying 512 KiB or half a megabyte I doubt you could run much. If you have 512 MiB though you might run quite well with a number of distros. SliTaz 1.0 is very small and requires a net connection to get the packages someone might want to run. > In another thread I got into a debate about what's the best distro for > a simple new Acer machine ($300) that uses the Atom uP from Intel. > But in this thread I just want to know if *any* Linux distro will work > on such *old* hardware. > > The target user's needs are VERY minimal. Very very very. Here is > what she needs: > > dial-up modem for internet access. Mouse. Maybe a printer (maybe > not). Support at *any* resolution for the Dell graphics card (forget > the name--it's pretty generic though). No need for an email client-- > she keeps all her emails at Yahoo, all her docs at Google apps, etc. > Everything online. No need for sound. The machine has USB but this > girl does not even know what a memory stick is. So only the USB mouse > matters. Try Knoppix 6.1 or 6.2 if you have that 512 megabytes of memory. You will have to read some documentation so that you can invoke the install-script at boot of the CD when it comes up with the terminal interface. If you had enough memory you could run in memory and save preferences to a file on the hard disk. On a Pentium 3 at 700 MHz and 384 MiB of ram I got Mandriva 2008.1 running nicely with a simple reduction in the number of virtual desktops to one (1). This was a Dell Inspiron 4000 with only 8 megabytes of video ram which had Windoze XP installed and I forget the fixed disk size but it had enough to do a split and setup a dual boot. Before the Mandriva I ran a old Knoppix on it. > Anybody think I can use Linux on this old setup, and, if which one? > Not even a 'best' OS --just one that will last five years or so and > allow surfing the net and maybe printing a document on a printer > locally? At that age the problem is with the physical components and the 5 year limit. > > RL Later bliss
From: GlowingBlueMist on 2 Jun 2010 16:12
On 6/2/2010 7:36 AM, RayLopez99 wrote: > Thinking of using on an old 1998 laptop PC that presently has a > Pentium II, with a built in generic Dell modem, USB mouse, 512k RAM > (!), DVD/CD, running Windows XP fine now (very slow), some distro of > Linux. > > In another thread I got into a debate about what's the best distro for > a simple new Acer machine ($300) that uses the Atom uP from Intel. > But in this thread I just want to know if *any* Linux distro will work > on such *old* hardware. > > The target user's needs are VERY minimal. Very very very. Here is > what she needs: > > dial-up modem for internet access. Mouse. Maybe a printer (maybe > not). Support at *any* resolution for the Dell graphics card (forget > the name--it's pretty generic though). No need for an email client-- > she keeps all her emails at Yahoo, all her docs at Google apps, etc. > Everything online. No need for sound. The machine has USB but this > girl does not even know what a memory stick is. So only the USB mouse > matters. > > Anybody think I can use Linux on this old setup, and, if which one? > Not even a 'best' OS --just one that will last five years or so and > allow surfing the net and maybe printing a document on a printer > locally? > > RL You might want to check out the list of ISO images available at http://www.livecdlist.com/ . Burn a couple to disk that look promising and give them a run directly from the CD or DVD and check them out. Most should work just fine with just about any hardware capable of running XP. Find what you like and then you can install it to the hard drive. I'd start with a download of the Puppy Linux. It's small, easy to download and will run from a CD which you burn, don't waste a DVD as it is a really small download. I also have a copy of it running from a flash drive with no problems, on computers that support booting from USB. Great for troubleshooting computers that have a suspected CD/DVD problem. The user interface is easy to learn which helps when trying to train someone who barely knows the difference between a computer mouse and the fuzzy kind... UNetbootin is a really easy way to load many distributions onto flash drives should someone wish to do so. http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ It really makes it easy to download the ISO directly to the flash drive from the internet or from an ISO you have already downloaded. When used properly it makes the ISO bootable directly from the flash drive. Burning a distribution to flash saves on CD/DVD's until you find one that you like. Then you can burn a CD\DVD version if you need one. |